Letter to the Editor

Abstract

Re: Bolderston et al. Smoothing the Way: The Perception of Unit Supervisor Radiation Therapist Roles at the British Columbia Cancer Agency. J Med Imag Radiat Sci. 2017; 48: p74-82. We would like to commend the authors for their insightful and interesting description of radiation therapists' perceptions about leadership roles within our profession. They described the role of “Unit Supervisor” in British Columbia as the first step on the Radiation Therapy (RT) leadership ladder, where the individual is asked to balance clinical and administrative duties in a challenging clinical environment. Using interviews and questionnaires, they found that there were substantial differences in how the role was viewed by the supervisors and by the frontline staff. Although we do not have exactly this type of role in our department, the information in this article was clearly relevant to all RT leadership roles. Therefore, we chose to present and discuss this article (informal journal club style) at our regular leadership meeting. A lively discussion ensued, and despite differences in role scope and responsibility, several points of resonance were identified between the findings of the research and our own leadership experiences. First, there is a large disconnect between frontline practitioners and those in leadership roles with regard to the actual activities performed within a leadership role. Our group felt this was important and went further to suggest that, if the scope of the leadership role is not in alignment with frontline staff expectations, then it will be impossible to attain a reasonable level of satisfaction with the leader's performance. Second, and perhaps closely related to the previous point, there is no process for job shadowing of leadership roles that would help frontline staff decide if leadership is the career path they wish to choose. This results in new leaders having a poor understanding of what tasks they will be working on and what skills they will need to achieve them. This leaves them focusing on what is familiar (clinical tasks) and not on their new administrative duties and has the potential to cause job dissatisfaction and/or poor performance, particularly as those clinical skills will inevitably fade. Finally, reading and discussing this excellent article within our regular leadership meeting has been an exceptionally useful experience. The discussion of these findings has prompted us to be transparent in the way leadership roles are designed in the future and to clearly communicate leadership roles' scope and objectives across the department. But perhaps more importantly, the discussion of this article in our leadership meeting stopped us from focusing on the operational “daily grind” and stimulated a free and strategic discussion of the role of RT leadership and how we can plan and develop that role into the future. Yours sincerely, Smoothing the Way: The Perception of Unit Supervisor Radiation Therapist Roles at the British Columbia Cancer AgencyJournal of Medical Imaging and Radiation SciencesVol. 48Issue 1PreviewThe “resource therapist” supervisory radiation therapy roles at the British Columbia Cancer Agency were recently evaluated. Full-Text PDF Response to Letter to the EditorJournal of Medical Imaging and Radiation SciencesVol. 48Issue 3PreviewResponse to letter from Rosewall et al, this edition RE: Bolderston et al. Smoothing the Way: The Perception of Unit Supervisor Radiation Therapist Roles at the British Columbia Cancer Agency. J Med Imag Radiat Sci. 2017; 48: p74-82. Full-Text PDF